Weapons of Mass Distraction

Current events being what they are, today’s rant against corporate malfeasance takes a backseat to the wonders of governmental incompetence. Not POLITICAL incompetence— because the recent bit of legislative flim-flam and its accompanying hoopla is a masterful political gesture intended by both sides to torpedo the opposition— rather, it’s GOVERNMENTAL incompetence, because it really isn’t doing much apart from throwing an unnecessary monkey wrench in the day-to-day dealings of our Federal government. All the hyperbole is way overblown (he said redundantly). My own reaction can best be summed up as follows: “Oh no. Our government is shutting down for 18th time in the past 36 years.”

Not a surprise, when one considers how bogged down the current political landscape has become. After all, inefficiency in government always starts at the roots of government: no one trusts anyone else to correctly instigate laws or spend the collective tax money, and different people disagree on what should be legislated and why. So procedural oversight is implemented so everyone can watch everyone else, keep a rein on legislation, and/or keep funding moving in directions with which they agree. Oversight becomes paranoia and that paranoia gets institutionalized and passed down from generation to generation, as rules and regulations and procedures are added and knocked down until no one can do anything without appointing a committee to run a six month study on it.

Apply the above formula to a 3.8 trillion dollar federal budget, and don’t forget to factor in the 3.2 million government employees whose job it is to play tug o’ war over every teensy little rule, regulation, and allocation of Federal tax money and property. Then split those employees into two equally-sized teams, each determined to apply its own political philosophy at the expense of the other at all cost, neither one of which is willing to compromise in any way with the other.

Voilà! Gridlock.

Meanwhile, the hordes of anti-Miley Cyrus moralists have quieted somewhat and Syria seems to have dropped entirely off the news radar, replaced by the hashtags “#government shut down“ and “#ACA.“

When it comes to our public consciousness, one rule remains in effect: Let the dogs bark… the caravan rolls on.